A second intelligence leak has challenged former President Donald Trump’s assertion that Iran’s nuclear program was “totally obliterated” following recent U.S. airstrikes.
According to The Washington Post, intercepted audio reveals Iranian officials privately describing the damage at three nuclear sites as “less devastating than expected.” This comes despite the use of heavy weaponry, including 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The leaked communication marks the second instance in a week where classified intelligence has contradicted Trump’s repeated claims — including one made just Sunday on Fox News — that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “blown up to kingdom come.”
The audio reportedly captures Iranian officials questioning why the attacks authorized by Trump weren’t more destructive, according to four individuals familiar with the classified materials. While the White House did not dispute the authenticity of the leak, it criticized the Post for publishing what it called “out-of-context” excerpts.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt denounced the report:
“It’s shameful that the Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks,” she said, insisting Iran’s nuclear program is “over.”
Fordow, one of the targeted sites, was built in 2006 and discovered by foreign intelligence in 2009. Iranian officials, in the intercepted audio, reportedly expressed surprise that the facility had not sustained greater damage.
A senior U.S. intelligence official also pushed back against the report, cautioning that a single intercepted conversation doesn’t present the complete picture:
“One slice of signals intelligence on its own does not reflect the full intelligence picture,” the source told the Post.
Trump, meanwhile, has continued to attack critics and the media for downplaying the success of the strike. He dismissed reports — including from the Pentagon — that Iran had moved much of its enriched uranium prior to the attack, or that the operation had set back the nuclear program by only a few months rather than years.
“I don’t think they did, no,” Trump said Sunday when asked if Iran had relocated uranium. “It’s very hard to do; it’s very dangerous to do … they didn’t know we were coming until just then.”
However, experts disagree. Nuclear nonproliferation specialist Joseph Cirincione told CNN that Iran could have relocated the material using “three or four trucks.” U.N. nuclear inspectors share that view, with the agency’s chief telling CBS News that Tehran could restart enrichment “in a matter of months.”
The White House declined to comment when contacted by The Daily Beast.
